Monday, 17 February 2014

Poddo - A Hobbit's Story

Podo samples the medicinal qualities of Stirland Special Leaf

You may consider this the latest update on our ongoing WFRP campaign, The Enemy Within 2.0. In my last post, we left our hardy adventurers in the town of Delberz, looking for a boat down river. Our GM has done a very good job of summarising what happens next. I'm a little hazy about this particular session, as it was at the end of a particularly busy week. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. Go read his blog to find out what happened.

Instead of just repeating the session verbatim here, I'm going to spend some time talking about Poddo. He is a halfling, a barber surgeon, and an NPC in our campaign. He is also a henchman in the classic gaming sense of the word.

While we were still in Averheim, we began to notice that wounded WFRP adventurers can take some time to heal up. This is not Dungeons and Dragons. While Fate points can save your bacon in WFRP, you still need to spend time, valuable weeks even, recovering. There are no convenient healing potions or clerics in the party who can channel positive energy at the drop of a mace.

In Averheim we started to visit the temple of Shallya, the goddess of healing. A lot. This quickly became quite expensive, and we also realised that the flow of gold into the party ranks was going to be...unpredictable. Hence, we worked out it might be simpler to hire our own surgeon to accompany the party on its travels. Enter Poddo.

Poddo was working as a surgeon in Averheim but was not very successful. He was not our first candidate for the job, either, but the other surgeon looked like he was going to be too expensive (although more competent), so we had to settle for the hobbit. Poddo could also cook, and agreed to a contract that would see him taking a half share (i.e. 50% of what other party members took) of all loot, plus have his room and board paid for. In exchange, he would be on hand to patch up party members when required.

Poddo's duties have become slightly more onerous than that, however. He has spent a lot of time driving our cart, for example. The idea was obviously that he would not be taking part in any actually fighting, but this has meant he is frequently assigned to look after horses, often under the watchful eye of another - armed - character, while the rest of us are dungeoneering.

However, things have become a little more complicated. There was the incident with the giant spider, which dropped on our cart out of the trees while we were travelling through the Great Forest. Unavoidable really. It was obviously unfortunate that Poddo was bitten, poisoned, and fell off the cart. We explained that this was an isolated incident, and that usually he would be surrounded by heavily armed adventurers who could protect him from such perils.

After that, there was the attack on our rear during our battle with the Chaos Beastmen near Middenheim. That was entirely unexpected, as they rushed us out of nowhere while the main, tooled-up portion of the party was busy killing a Minotaur. It could have happened to anyone. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can't remember whether Poddo was harmed in the assault. Probably not.

More recently, while left to guard a barge with Drandruel, Poddo was attacked by a couple of river trolls. To his credit, he felled one with a single shot from his sling, a most impressive feat which, if he is not careful, will see him promoted to full party member status. What lies ahead for the plucky hobbit surgeon from Averheim? Only time - and the dice - will tell.